


Repeat, Then Reverse

by finchphenomenon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Death Fix, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Enemies, Gore, M/M, Madara makes amends, Mild Gore, Mutual Pining, Pining, The Uchiha Massacre never happens, The founders survive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 06:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18795022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finchphenomenon/pseuds/finchphenomenon
Summary: Forgiveness never comes cheap; for Madara, it comes at a  crawl.





	1. blast from the past

**Author's Note:**

> :((

Well.

  
He told himself that this is it, that he'd go down gracefully and let Hashirama win. He told himself that he wouldn't put up a fight, that he'd follow his heart instead of his head, just this once, but there isn't much left to follow, metaphorically or literally.

  
He sways, a gurgling grunt his reply to the sword punched through his ribs, to the searing pain blossoming through his chest and the way his heart cuts itself to pieces on Hashirama's blade. He opens his mouth to cough, or perhaps to speak or cry or scream; nothing but blood comes out, salty and wet and too-hot, and he watches numbly as it splatters over his front and onto the rain-drenched ground.

  
Warm hands cradle his face, thumbs swirling what should be soothing patterns along his cheekbones; he feels a dull twinge as Hashirama's clone pulls the sword from his back, feels Hashirama pull him close and burst into tears as he holds him.

  
"I'm sorry," Hashirama whimpers, face screwed up in pain and regret, and not even in this can Madara hate him. Not even now can he find it in himself to turn his friend away, and that hurts more than his broken ribs and his failing heart, more than the skull-splitting ache behind his eyes. He lets himself go slack, and Hashirama unbuckles the clasps of his armor, holds him almost tenderly, one arm wrapped around Madara's shoulders, his other hand cupping his cheek. Madara wishes he could be angry.

  
When Hashirama settles him onto the earth, when Hashirama lays beside him with tears still streaming down his face, when the weight of Hashirama's head settles on his chest and he feels his friend cling to him and shake with sobs, Madara only feels tired.

  
When his vision grays out, and Hashirama begins to feel less corporeal against him, when his pleas and howls grow louder, Madara finally, finally feels at peace.

  
He allows himself a small smile before he loses consciousness.

 

* * *

 

And here and now, in this situation, he finds himself less tired than before, more angry and regretful and disgusted at what he's become. Zetsu's fist is streaked in his blood and shards of his bone, and it hurts less than Hashirama's sword did, even if the damage is far more extensive.

  
There's a wet squelch as Zetsu withdraws its fist, and he stares uncaringly at the gaping wound in his chest. Such things can be mended.  
The moon, the blank look on all the faces around him, the crushing realization of having been horribly wrong - those cannot.

  
He glances at Hashirama, finds his eyes and holds them with his own, and Hashirama comes closer.

  
He walks past, ignores the hand extended to him, ignores Madara's silent plea ( _forgive me, take me back, I'm sorry_ ), and instead, lets thorns the size of a man erupt into and out of Zetsu's body from various angles.  
It gurgles and twitches, and something like relief blooms in Madara's chest. He laughs weakly, falls to his knees, and Hashirama catches him before he shatters his nose or some part of his skull with the force of his fall.

  
"I'm sorry," he says, quiet and tired and close to tears, and Hashirama stares at him for a long, _pitying_ moment before he places a glowing green hand against Madara's chest.

  
"I'm so sorry," Madara repeats, voice small and breaking with every syllable, and closes his eyes. "I shouldn't have left."

  
"I should have made our dream feel like _our_ dream," Hashirama counters. "I was selfish. I should have given you a true home."

  
"You _did_ ," Madara admits. "Every time you said you were my friend, every time you went out of your way to avoid hurting me when we battled, every time you smiled at me and said you wished things could be so easy forever - that _was_ like coming home, Senju."  
He coughs. Black blood (ichor, perhaps; the rules of human anatomy certainly no longer apply) sprays out of his mouth, and he leans further into Hashirama with a weak chuckle.

  
"Promise me something," Hashirama demands.

  
Madara nods. He might promise him the whole world at this point. He knows he would deliver.

  
"Promise me you'll let yourself come home," Hashirama says, cradles his face again like he did the first time around, and he sighs, mapping out Madara's features with his hands, drinking in all the changes to his face with his eyes.

  
"Promise me, Madara, that you will stay this time around. Promise me that when I say I want you to remain, you _will_ , and you'll accept that I truly do want _you_."

  
Madara nods silently. He doesn't trust himself to speak.  
Hashirama smiles, eyes finally lighting up for the first time.

  
"Thank you."

Across from them, Kakashi and his children are flocked around a man, and something like familiarity stirs in Madara's gut. He disentangles himself from Hashirama's arms, walks slowly, purposefully to their little group.

  
Sasuke tenses; Naruto looks worried and inexplicably empathetic. Madara frowns.

  
The man in their midst turns to face him.

  
"You have some nerve, coming here, coming to _me_ -" he begins, snarling through his teeth, Sharingang spinning to life, swirling into its higher form. Madara stiffens.  
"Be quiet, whelp," he snaps. Obito (he's sure it's Obito, it _has_ to be) goes slack-jawed. Then, he cocks back his fist and slams it into Madara's face.  
"You son of a bitch," he spits, right eye swirling in between patterns in his fury. He punches Madara again, and again until his knuckles come away stained black.

  
Kakashi, the children and Hashirama watch with a mixture of trepidation and schadenfreude. Madara grits his teeth. He owes Obito an apology, not that it will help, but he _refuses_ to let the man break his pride with a crowd.

  
"Obito," he says, ducks from another blow and completely misses the kick to his midsection. It folds him in half, makes him double over to catch his breath, and Obito grabs a fitful of his hair and yanks back until Madara's throat is bared to him. Madara hisses indignantly; Obito holds a knife to his neck and stares him in the eye, and there's a brief sensation of folding in on himself before he finds himself... somewhere.

  
There's a thought at the back of his mind, something like recognition. Madara is allowed all but a moment to mull things over before Obito's fist connects with his face, his shoulder, his collarbone, his chin. He doesn't move.

  
He wants to _fight_ , wants to mow Obito down like the insolent _cockroach_ he is, but it would be wrong.  
_It's my fault to begin with. If he needs to punish anyone, let it be me._

  
Obito spends the better part of an hour hitting and kicking him, howling in his face and punching and scratching, and it hurts, it stings, but Madara lets him.  
_I can't believe I sunk so low as to use him and Nagato_ , he thinks, tiredness seeping into his bones, and for the first time since he broke the Reanimation, he feels as old as he is.  
Obito seems to have relaxed marginally; he smacks Madara across the cheek, breaks his nose with another half-hearted punch before dropping his hands in disgust and bursting into tears.

  
"I fucking _hate_ you," he sobs, slumps to the floor and draws his knees to his chest. "I hate you so _much_. I wish you'd die."  
"I know," Madara says, quiet and earnest, and bows his head. "I wish I could say I don't deserve it."

* * *

 

They arrive back where they came from, Obito curled in on himself, Madara staring blankly at the ground at his feet.

  
Gentle hands grip his shoulders from behind, and Madara breaks away, roars, " _Don't fucking touch me_!" before storming away and streaking through a swath of trees. The pattern on the moon swirls and eddies as his vision blurs, and almost as an afterthought, Madara brings two fingers to his mouth and murmurs, " _Release_ ".

  
He nearly loses his footing as darkness engulfs him, and the dizzying sensation of his chakra rapidly dropping is enough to send him pitching forward, crashing to the ground and rolling over himself, propelled by his momentum, before he comes to a stop, spread-eagled and panting.

  
The moon looks normal, he thinks, head splitting, something hot pooling in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks, and he's afraid to touch it for fear his fingers will come away black.

  
The pain behind his eyes makes the world spin and rock, makes him moan weakly and clutch at his head with bared teeth, and he's eternally grateful that Hashirama isn't a sensor, and thus has next to no chance of finding him.

  
It's little consolation. Madara staggers to his feet, drenched in sweat, and stumbles forward several steps before he falls to his knees and vomits a mildly worrying amount of blood onto the grass.

  
He shuffles away from the pool, crawls halfway to a great old oak (he wonders how he knows, and decides it doesn't matter) before his arms give out and he finds himself face down in a patch of mud. Something crawls over the back of his neck.  
The instinct to turn his nose and mouth out of the muck barely registers with Madara before he passes out.

 


	2. helping hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hashirama has no concept of personal space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hashbrown

Someone is screaming.

He wishes they'd be quiet; his head _hurts_.

" _Madara_!" they yell. He ignores them. Let them scream. He wants to sleep.

"Madara, wake up," they cry, sounding frantic, and a mixture of disbelief and guilt roil in him until apathy overtakes either emotion.

"Madara! _Please_!"

 _Shut up. Let me be_. They turn him over, heedless of his broken bones, and hold what feels like three fingers under his nostrils.

He tries to hold his breath and fails. He wishes he could sneeze on them. Maybe they'd take a hint.

"Tobirama, help me carry him," they snap, and a moment later, Madara feels his body leave the ground. It makes the pain in his arms and his chest and stomach and the spot where Obito snapped his tibia so much more apparent, and he thrashes against whomever it is that's holding him.

"I can't _hold_ him," Tobirama barks, sets Madara down as carefully as he can while he squirms and bucks.

"Madara," the first person says, pleading and impossibly gentle, and cups his face. He opens his eyes- at least, his eyelids fold back and the sting of fresh air meets his eyes, but he may as well have left them closed.

"Madara, _please_ ," he hears, and he reaches out with his chakra. It's met by one much larger and brighter, and he withdraws his own, allowing himself to relax slightly.

Hashirama pulls him close, buries his face in the mass of Madara's hair and rubs circles into his shoulder blades.

"Tobirama, would you mind going on ahead?" he asks softly. Madara feels Tobirama's chakra waver for a moment and then quickly streak away from them. Hashirama moves away, and for a moment Madara misses his warmth and the soothing swirl of his chakra, but Hashirama only lets healing chakra leak into his hand with a dull hum and begins examining him for injuries.

"My leg," Madara offers in a small voice, holds the offending limb out as far as he can before the pain makes the blood drain from his face and his ears ring.

"Oh, _god_ ," he blurts. Hashirama pales.

"Madara, how did you _run_ with this?" he exclaims, horrified, and mentally prepares himself to set the bone. Madara shakes his head, mumbles something that sounds like "adrenaline".

"I need to set the bone," Hashirama warns. "I won't be able to heal it the way it is. I mean, I can, but it'll heal incorrectly. Tell me when you're ready."

Madara yanks his gloves off by his teeth, wads them together and stuff them in between his teeth. He's no stranger to pain, but he can't say he's exactly fond of it, either. It takes a moment to compose himself, to let his mind blank out and nod at Hashirama before his courage fails him.

Hashirama bears down. Madara _howls_ , tears pooling in his eyes as Hashirama shifts the bone back into its natural position. The cool, soothing wash of chakra over his leg makes him whimper and fall against Hashirama, shaking and crying and dizzy.

Hashirama holds him, chest hitching with a sob, and strokes over the back of Madara's head, fingers carding through his hair and scratching gently at his scalp and the nape of his neck.

"I need to keep going," Hashirama apologizes, gently pushes Madara off of his lap to continue healing him. He fixes his nose, his split bottom lip, the myriad bruises blooming across his skin. He heals the welts around Madara's throat where Obito had grabbed and choked him, mends the crack in his collarbone and the crater left by Zetsu's fist.

Hashirama places a palm across his eyes, leaks chakra into them and through his optic nerves. Madara nearly groans in relief as things waver into clarity around him.

Finally, Hashirama stares down at the newly healed plane of his chest, bringing his hand to rest where Madara's heart should be.

"I'll be fine," Madara assures him, but Hashirama funnels chakra into him and stares with determination.

"I want it to be there," he explains, sounding upset. "I... I need something to remind me that you're still human, Madara."

"I'm not," Madara says plainly, tired. "I bleed when I shouldn't, I summon meteors from the heavens with barely a thought, I have the worst monster known to mankind sealed within me - how am I human, Hashirama?"

"Let me have this," Hashirama begs, continues pooling chakra until Madara's insides seemed arranged correctly. Cells sprout where his chakra fills Madara's chest, taking shape and multiplying until Hashirama is satisfied. He jolts chakra into Madara's heart, pulls him close again and rests his hand over Madara’s chest to test his handiwork, and sighs heavily.

 "I'm not going to be the reason that stops again," he promises, himself more than Madara, and takes a steadying breath. "I won't let you go a second time, I promise."

Madara huffs against him, shivers and curls closer. His chakra dims to a slow thrum, and his breathing evens out to a soft snore, and Hashirama holds him and clings to him and prays to every god he knows that he'll be allowed to keep Madara this time. He rests his chin on Madara's head, buries his face in his hair and breathes in his scent, familiar and soothing and oddly sweet despite the blood and sweat that cling to him, and presses his lips gently against Madara's temple. Madara blinks, stares groggily past Hashirama's shoulder and nestles back with a little grumble. Hashirama laughs softly, fondly, kisses the top of his head and lets himself be lulled to sleep by the sound of leaves rustling around them and the slow rhythm of Madara breathing against him.

 

* * *

 

 

Hashirama comes to in darkness, feeling strangely restricted and not particularly caring, which he finds less alarming in and of itself than he should. He realizes Madara has an arm thrown around him (that explains the restrictive feeling) and that he himself is curled around Madara's side, his head resting on Madara's chest. Somehow their position seems familiar. Hashirama sighs softly and closes his eyes, allows himself to focus on the gentle sweep of Madara's breathing, the slow, steady thump of his heart, and he promises himself, again, that he will keep and protect his friend this time. He _has_ to. He won't lose Madara again.

 

* * *

 

 

Madara blinks in the sunlight assaulting his eyes and groans quietly. Something stirs around his midsection; Hashirama lifts his head and looks at him strangely before grinning.

"Good morning," he chirps, brushes a strand of hair out of Madara's face. Madara blows another out of the way and watches it flutter back into place with a frown.

"Hashirama," he mumbles, yawns. "Let me get up."

"Of course, of course," Hashirama amends quickly and rolls off of him. "Apologies, Madara! It's just nice to wake up safely with a friend, and I thought I'd, ah, let myself enjoy that."

He trails off weakly at the sight of Madara's wide eyes and raised brows, and pouts at Madara's decidedly unimpressed expression.

" _Well_ , Senju," Madara offers primly, in a way that suggests he's about to say or do something _indescribably_ irritating and is enjoying every moment, "If you wanted to cuddle me you could always have said so, you know."

Hashirama's brain screeches to a halt. "I, uh... that was a coincidence, I wasn't, I don't-"

Madara rolls his eyes. "Hashirama. I’m _kidding_."

"Uhh, right," Hashirama blurts entirely too quickly, turning red. "I knew that. Sorry. Shall we head back?"

Madara nods silently; it's as though someone flipped a switch inside him. Any joking demeanor is gone, instantly erased, and he seems bone-tired and lonely in a way Hashirama can't begin to comprehend. He looks his friend over, worried, then lifts him and hoists Madara onto his back. Madara clings, and Hashirama readjusts him, straightening and gripping the undersides of his friend's thighs to shift Madara to a more comfortable position (and one that'll make it easier to carry him). Madara nestles into his shoulder, resting there, and Hashirama sighs.

"Don't fall," he warns before he takes off. Madara startles, readjusts his grip so Hashirama won't lose him, and watches the countryside fly past them idly. This is _nice_ , allowing himself to relax and be taken care of, the knowledge that Hashirama won't let anything or anyone harm him... it feels good to be safe. It feels good to trust Hashirama.

Overhead, a hawk screams, and Madara smiles. A goshawk, female, by the sound of it. He wonders if she's hunting to feed her chicks. A pang goes through him at the thought of his own birds.

 _I never said goodbye to them_ , he thinks, bowing his head against Hashirama's shoulder, and lets his eyes drift shut. He misses them. He wishes he could have said his farewells. "Hashirama," he says, voice muffled by the fabric of Hashirama's shirt. Hashirama hums softly.

"I want falcons," Madara tells him, and Hashirama hears the waver in his voice. Madara starts to shake against him, and a moment later, the back of his shoulder is wet.

Hashirama lands on a wide branch. "Alright," he says, setting Madara down and turning to face him. "We're not going one step further until you tell me why you're crying, Madara."

"I'm _not_ -" Madara begins. His voice cracks and dies, and he stares at the branch at their feet, dazed and tired. A tear drips down the tip of his nose; he follows it before it lands, then looks up at Hashirama.

"I don't know," he admits, breaking eye contact again, and his head feels stuffed with cotton, his chest feels constricted, and he glances up at Hashirama again.

Hashirama understands. He wraps his arms around Madara's waist, pulls him into a hug that would be stifling coming from anyone else, and simply holds Madara while he cries.

"Madara," he finally needles, pleading, rubbing his thumbs along the indentations of Madara's spine. Madara turns away, shaking harder, hands clenched to fists in Hashirama's shirt. It takes several minutes for him to relax, or at least for him to stop trembling and breathe normally. He's still shivering by the end of his fit, hands shaking so badly Hashirama has to pry his fingers apart, and when he brushes a strand of hair out of Madara's eyes, it's damp with sweat.

"You're in no condition to go on," Hashirama says with a heavy finality, like he'll be angry if Madara doesn't stay. Madara's eyes prickle. Hashirama kneels opposite him, steadies Madara with a hand to the shoulder. Madara stares through him, eyes vacant and uneasy, and slumps into Hashirama's arms.

" 'm _sorry_ , I didn't -" he mumbles, and Hashirama hisses soothingly and pulls him close again. How on earth is he going to bring Madara back to Konoha? Is the village still what it used to be? Has Sasuke... No, best not to think of that.

"I'm sorry," Madara repeats. Hashirama leads him to the trunk of the tree and sits there with him, holding Madara in his lap and carding his hands through the man's hair.

"I won't say that what you did wasn't wrong," Hashirama admits, mentally kicking himself when Madara stiffens against him. "But I know you had your reasons, and I know you're too kind to take pleasure in what you've done. I just... wish I'd tried harder to keep you around."

"Don't blame yourself," Madara mutters bitterly. "You're not the one who groomed your own great-grandson into a weapon of mass destruction, or implanted your own eyeballs into a child you've never met, or sealed a monster within yourself, or -"

"I'm also not the one who did all that because I couldn't bear to see others suffer and wanted a kinder world for them," Hashirama cuts him off. "I may not be as open in my methods as you, Madara, but I assure you I've never doubted for a _moment_ that you are a kind man."

" _Ah_ ," Madara goes, and _something_ flickers across his face. He bows his head into the crook of Hashirama's neck. Hashirama cringes. Madara is _abysmal_ when it comes to dealing with his emotions; it's almost painful watching him awkwardly struggle through a conversation, or admit that he did well at something, or even to see him show that he's happy. Mostly, Hashirama has come to expect false bravado and self-deprecating humor.

Now, Madara is curled up in his arms, arms drawn protectively to his chest while Hashirama smooths out the mess of curls in his hair, and he looks so small and vulnerable, Hashirama can't help but wonder how this is the same man he clashed with not yet a day ago.

"You mentioned falcons," Hashirama remembers, tucks a strand of hair behind Madara's ear. He hates looking at Madara's hair, and he hates that he hates it; he misses how dark it used to be, how _warm_ it grew under the sun. Now, it's like running his fingers through raw silk, or spiderweb. Madara hums quietly, lips flattening before he nods and closes his eyes.

"I never said goodbye to my birds," he says. "The goshawk I heard earlier reminded me. I... I've been _horrible_ , Hashirama."

Hashirama plays with another strand of hair. He twists it into the light, watching how a rainbow breaks across its surface. _That_ , he likes. Madara's hair really looks lovely in the sun, now.

"I'll buy you new ones," he offers. "Even... even a big one, like - not Watatsumi..."

"It was Watatsumi," Madara says gently, amused. "She was a golden eagle. One of my best, and my favorite to work with."

Hashirama lights up. "I remember her! She was... very _protective_ of you, if I recall correctly."

"That she was," Madara chuckles. He falls silent.

Hashirama rests his hand over Madara's chest, simply for the sake of contact and because touching his face seems too intimate. Madara shivers, heat rising into his cheeks.

 _Oh_. He hopes Hashirama doesn't feel his heart racing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are rivals.... bro... we are shinobi caught up in a world war... it's okay to touch me gently and linger while you heal me... we are snuggling... don't stop, bro... bro...


	4. Chapter 4

They’re close to the village border; Hashirama recognizes the outcropping of Hokage Mountain they used to stand upon.

Madara stirs against him, lifting his head blearily and glancing around.

“ _Stop_ ,” he mutters suddenly, squirming out of Hashirama’s arms and dropping to a limb below them. Hashirama skids to a stop, crouching and surveying the area. He’s about to push off when Madara goes ramrod straight and draws a knife.

“Behind you!” he snaps, throws the kunai over his shoulder with pinpoint accuracy and turns on his heel to dispatch another shinobi twenty feet above them and slightly to Hashirama’s right. A moment later, the dull, heavy thud of a body hitting the forest floor sounds. Madara turns in a circle, eyes wide, brow crinkled in anger, and raises a hand.

Hashirama barely has time to register the woman flying toward Madara before she crumples against a wall of invisible power and is sent hurtling through the air with such force that she knocks down a nearby tree. She plummets to the ground. Madara seethes.

“There’s one more,” he tells Hashirama. “Wait here.”

It takes a few minutes, but he returns with a man slung over his shoulder, unconscious and twice Madara’s size. Madara dumps him unceremoniously onto Hashirama’s branch and crouches beside the man before slapping him across the face to wake him up. The man slowly comes to, blinking and groaning. Madara pounces on his opening.

“Nice afternoon, isn’t it?” he says almost conversationally. The man turns his head to face him, and the telltale widening of his eyes is all Madara needs to slap a hand over the man’s mouth.

“If you scream, I’ll kill you,” he says. The man pales and nods frantically. Madara removes his hand.

“What’s your name?”

“Shimura Shinsen,” the man blurts, looking very gray in the face.

Hashirama places a hand on Madara’s shoulder. “I don’t think he’s a threat, Madara,” he says, amusement clear.

“He wanted to hurt you,” Madara argues calmly. His eyes, unbeknownst to Hashirama, have begun to spin lazily between their base form and his Mangekyo, and the man in his grip whimpers.

“Why were you trying to kill us?” Madara drawls.

“You really have to ask?” the man squeaks, voice dying off as Madara leans in and towers over him.

“No,” he replies in his sweetest, most simpering tone. “Not for myself. But for Hashirama here, I do. So, again; why were you trying to kill Senju Hashirama?”

“I was ordered to!” the man cries. Madara scoffs.

“You don’t understand,” the man pleads. “They made me do it. I didn’t have a choice!”

“Who is ‘they’?” Madara sighs. He’s losing his patience, Hashirama can tell. If they don’t settle this quickly, things will grow ugly.

“The… there’s a clan from Mist,” the man grovels, looking very much like he’d love to disappear into the face of the earth. Madara sighs. “The Kurosuki, and they… they have this kekkei genkai. It’s horrible.”

“What makes it horrible?” Madara wonders, genuine curiosity seeping into the cultivated boredom of his voice. He can’t fathom of anything more horrible than the Rinnegan. “They… they have awful red eyes, with irresistible genjutsu… my teammate was roped into going with them and I haven’t heard from him since! They captured me and tortured me and - I…”

Madara pinches the bridge of his nose. Hashirama looks uneasy; he keeps giving Madara odd glances and finally, raises a quizzical brow.

“These red eyes wouldn’t… happen to contain _patterns_ ,” Madara needles.

“No, they’re pure red,” the man exclaims. He’s frantic, still, wild-eyed and breathing like he’s run for miles. Madara almost pities him. Almost.

“Are you sure?” Madara sighs. “I mean… red eyes… genjutsu… isn’t that a bit on the nose?”

“I’m not talking about _you_ ,” the man snaps indignantly. Madara hums and nods.

“Alright, then. What makes you so certain that these red, genjutsu-casting eyes aren’t Sharingan?”

“They… they’re slit to the side, like goat eyes,” the man mutters. “Or toads. And they glow. I’ve never seen a Sharingan that glows, not like that.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Hashirama blurts. Madara turns to face him; he looks uneasy, all of a sudden, like he’s come to realize something he wishes he could forget.

“Tobirama mentioned something like that once. He… he told me what the dojutsu was called, but I forget.” Madara mulls it over. Nothing comes to mind.

“Let’s go talk to Tobirama, then,” he growls. He slackens his grip on the man’s shirt; Hashirama places a hand against the man’s forehead and catches him as he crumples.

 

* * *

 

 

The door they arrive at is situated somewhere at the end of the fourth floor of Hokage Tower and has a warding seal painted over it, along with the name _Senju Tobirama_ in scrawled Kanji.

It's a rather nondescript place to keep an office, not the kind of area Madara would expect someone so grand as a Kage to reside.

“Open up, Tobirama,” Hashirama snaps, pounding on the door. Madara shifts the unconscious Shimura slung over his shoulders to a more comfortable position (for himself, not the man) and taps an impatient foot. A moment later, the door swings open, and Tobirama emerges looking frazzled and ruffled. Madara marches into his office without so much as a ‘hello’; Hashirama sighs and gives his brother an apologetic look before following Madara inside. Tobirama stops Madara with a hand to the shoulder.

“How did you get into the village without being seen? I’ve planted spies at every corner; they should have reported you.”

“They were probably looking for the old me,” Madara retorts coolly, and Tobirama could kick himself; he’s right.

“Put him on the table,” Tobirama orders, because his office doubles as his lab, and he doesn’t seem to mind his... experiments taking place in the same place as his duties as bodyguard and chief of police. Madara wrinkles his nose in disgust. Still, he dumps the Shimura onto Tobirama’s desk, because Tobirama said _table_ but didn’t specify and because he wants to irritate the man who murdered his brother as much as humanly possible. Tobirama’s pen snaps in his grip.

“Madara, can you be civil just this once?”

“Be civil?” Madara simpers. “Why, of course. I’ll leave you to him, then, wouldn’t want to get in your way.” And he flashes Tobirama a saccharine sneer and waltzes out of the room before slamming the door so hard he can hear glass tinkling on the floor.

“ _Uchiha_!” Tobirama bellows. Madara’s eyes itch. He can’t believe anyone could be so infuriating.

A child rounds the corner, clad in a raincoat, humming loudly and off-key, and Madara can’t help the way his face rearranges itself into an astonished expression. That child is so happy, despite… his face crumples, and he grits his teeth and buries it in his hands.

“Hey, gramps,” the child giggles and swings their arms back and forth in front of him. He grunts, startled, and peeks out from over his fingers. He lowers his hands; this child doesn’t need to think him a coward, too.

“Why’re you crying?” the kid wonders, wide-eyed and innocently concerned, like children so often are. Madara sighs, tilts his head back tiredly.

“What makes you think I’m old?” he retorts mildly, giving the ceiling a thousand-yard stare. The child shrugs.

“Your hair’s all white, like my Nana’s. You look a little like my Nana, if she were a guy!” He bites down on a laugh. Never in his long life has he been compared to someone’s _grandmother_ , of all things.

“Aren’t you hot?” The kid continues, and leans against the wall beside him, making puddles on the floor. Madara’s mouth falls open; the child seems so... at ease. Madara’s jaw clamps shut again. Isn’t this child afraid of him? Surely even today’s children are told of… Well, _him_ , the boogeyman that haunted the world, the Ghost of the Uchiha. Surely this child would run shrieking in the opposite direction if they knew.

“What’s your name, child?” he asks mildly, more out of politeness than genuine curiosity, and the little one raises its head and beams.

“Mirai! Sarutobi Mirai, mister,” and he sees now that the child is a girl. Her hood falls as she tilts her head back to stare at him, and Madaras jaw unhinges itself for the second time.

“Sarutobi?” he parrots, eyes huge and disbelieving. “You look-“

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what everyone says,” she grumps. “What about you? Hatake, right?”

Madara laughs; he can’t help it. “Ironically enough, _I_ am an Uchiha,” he tells her and slides down against the wall to sit cross-legged. She follows suit.

“I’ve never met an Uchiha with white hair,” Mirai muses and stares at him. “It looks really cool!” Madara doesn’t quite know what to say. He flushes a bit, bites his lip and huffs. This child is… disarming, he’ll grant her that.

The door to Hashirama’s office slams open. Tobirama storms out, hair in disarray, eyes narrowed dangerously, and finds the pair chatting on the floor. The mighty Uchiha Madara, making small talk with a child. It’s enough to give anyone pause.

“Uchiha,” Tobirama snaps, because the girl may not know with whom she’s speaking and he wants to avoid spooking her, but Madara completely bulldozes over him.

“Madara is perfectly acceptable,” he retorts with a sweet smile and gives his new… friend a thoughtful look. She looks from him to Tobirama, then back - and shrieks as comprehension dawns. Madara slaps a palm to his face in instant regret; Tobirama groans and rolls his eyes. Mirai, for her part, is absolutely star-struck. She’s gawping at them, eyes as round as saucers, mouth wide open, and Madara reaches around to gently clamp her jaw shut.

“Mind the flies,” he smirks.

“There you are,” Hashirama exclaims irritably, pulling Madara to his feet by his wrist, and Mirai stares and stares.

"I, um, I should go tell Mama about this," she babbles and bows at the waist and runs off without so much as a goodbye.

They all stand there, feeling rather awkward, until Hashirama clears his throat and pulls them into the office.

"Well," Tobirama mutters, pinches the bridge of his nose and rounds on Madara. "You better be able to replace that frame you broke."

Madara ignores him in favor of kneeling in the heap of shards and picking them off the floor, and he doesn’t seem to notice or care that his hands and knees end up raw and red. “I’ll buy you a _hundred_ fucking frames, if that’s what this is about,” he finally snaps. “But it’s not, so I won’t. Aside from the obvious, why do you… what’s your problem?”

“I don’t trust you,” Tobirama replies icily, measures Madara with a stare not unlike that of a bird of prey. It’s unsettling, seeing something so familiar and beloved in the face of the man he hates most. “And now I see I have ample reason for my mistrust. Look at what you’ve _done_! The general public are going to react badly enough to me and Hashirama being here, but you? What’s to say I don’t just release the Edo Tensei here and now and send you back where you came from?”

“Send _me_ back where _I_ came from?” Madara snaps, fairly spitting with rage, and Tobirama can’t help a flinch. Madara notices.

He stills, sighs, then jolts upright simply because he wants to startle Tobirama. It works. “Fucking _brat_ ,” Madara exclaims, kicks the frame of the door, and the office shudders precariously. “You’re not - you’re not _innocent_ in all this, you know, you’re not-“ He cuts himself off, eyes spinning in swirls that make Tobirama dizzy to watch, and storms out of the office for the second time that afternoon.

Hashirama sighs heavily and lays down the scroll he was studying. Tobirama rounds on him, jaw clenched, mouth open to fly into a tirade, but Hashirama silences him with a raised hand and a stern look.

“He overreacted, Tobirama, but he’s not exactly wrong, I’m afraid. You… you must realize that.”

“Is this about-“ Tobirama begins, flabbergasted and wounded in his pride, until he realizes that, yes, that is _exactly_ what this is about. If someone so violently took Itama or Kawarama from him, after he’d gone to such obvious pains to protect them as Madara clearly had… he knows he wouldn’t have kept quiet. He doubts he would have kept his wits about him any longer than Madara has, if he’s honest.

“Still, Anija,” he begins, if only to preserve that last shred of dignity he has, “he’s always been… very _easily riled._ You can’t say you haven’t noticed.”

“I have,” Hashirama sighs. “I just… I think you both need to accept you’re in the wrong, here.”

”I suppose,” Tobirama says, and exits the office.


End file.
